Jack Lalanne – one of a kind

Jack LaLanne just died. I wanted to say a few things about him.
His death was a loss for the Body Building profession, Physical Training as a lifestyle fitness game, and Chiropractic.
Why Chiropractic? Jack Lalanne got his education at Oakland Chiropractic College. He was years, decades, generations ahead of others in the field of fitness. No surprise to those of us in the Chiropractic profession. But he chose to be a Trainer instead of opening a clinic.
In the “bad ol’ days” when Body Building was a fringe activities for nuts, not even accepted as a sport, the purists and heavies gravitated to “Muscle Beach” in Southern California. That’s where Scharzenegger made his break. There were stories of a group “up north”, who kept showing up for competitions and winning trophies. They were trained by Jack.
In both locations, it’s no surprise that the fringe sport of body building worked with the fringe profession of Chiropractic. In both locations, training methods evolved that took Body Builders way ahead of other sports, and eventually, everyone else incorporated that training into their sports. Athletics is a different world than it used to be, and flamboyant people like Jack made it so. His “stunts” were beyond legendary. Who swims Alcatraz to San Francisco hauling boats? JL,… and maybe a couple of escapees? (but that’s another story)
Jack was always adamant about Nutrition, which conflicted wildly with the conventional wisdom of “three square meals a day” or the notion that if you exercise enough, it doesn’t matter.
When I first saw Jack Lalanne on daytime TV, I assumed that someone like him was a standard fixture in any urban TV land. Not so, Jack Lalanne was one of a kind.